


The Ties That Bind: S1E0 - Twist of Fate -Deleted Scene-

by TinkerbellBleu



Series: The Ties That Bind [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Horror, Humor, Prequel, Rewrite, Sarcasm, Sass, Series, Slow Burn, Snark, Supernatural romance, To Be Continued
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24399679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinkerbellBleu/pseuds/TinkerbellBleu
Summary: Part 1 of 2: Before Sam and Stanford, before Jericho and the Woman in White...Go back to where it really began, when a young woman took a shortcut down the wrong alley and met a man that would change her life forever. ...and his too, come to think of it.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Ties That Bind [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1242071
Comments: 8
Kudos: 10





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: 
> 
> If you haven't read Woman in White, I highly recommend you start there first. Yes, this is technically a prequel to Woman in White, but just trust me, this is so much better after you actually like the characters. I'd definitely read Woman in White and maybe also Cold Comfort first, then come back to this one and consider it like a flashback. XD
> 
> So, here we have it, our first 'Deleted Scene', and it's when Skye and Dean met. I never really intended to sit down and write it out, but it just popped into my head last night and wouldn't go away so...here it is.
> 
> Now, as a deleted scene, it isn't edited or beta'd or polished in any way. Aside from basic spelling checks, I have done nothing to this. It just came out in a stream of consciousness type thing at like midnight so...
> 
> Maybe someday I'll sit down and brush it up into a real story but today is not that day because I'm putting all my effort into Wendigo right now. But you know what, in spite of the fact that it's not a 'real, full story' (there aren't even any chapters! Gasp!) I think you'll get the gist and hopefully enjoy it. So, without further ado, I bring you 'Twist of Fate: Part One'.

New Orleans at night. Oct. 25th, 2005. 4 AM.

Skyler's just getting off shift from BlackJack's and is headed home, taking her usual route. Is it the safest thing ever for a teenage girl to be walking along in the wee hours in the morning in the middle of New Orleans? No, probably not, but she tends to take well-lit paths in areas that always have some people, are well-patrolled, and/or she's got mace in her pocket.

It's been a long-ass day and she's tired, her feet hurt, she smells like a brewery and all she wants to do is go home and turn on the radio and read until she passes out so she can do it all over again tomorrow. She'd also need to stop by the nursing home before work tomorrow to see her Grandmother, it had been a couple days and though Beatrice might not be aware of who she was or pretty much anything else (usually), it makes Skye feel better to check in on her on the regular, though for what it's costing Beatrice's estate to keep her cared for in that ritzy-ass nursing home, if so much as the tiniest bed sore were to pop up, Skyler would probably raise absolute hell.

She passes a side-street, a shortcut that eventually goes through an alley that comes out not three blocks from her shitty little 'efficiency' apartment. It edged a not-so-great area and the streetlights were always out, the few people around were of the kind to keep their heads down and their guns loaded and she tended to go the long way round to avoid it, though it added a solid half an hour to her commute. And she _never_ took it at night.

Of course, there's a first time for everything, or so they say. Why did she choose to go down that particular route at that particular time on that particular night? The world may never know.

* * *

Dean had only gotten into the city not even 24 hours before, having tracked a Voodoo priestess down after nearly two weeks on the case. This particular 'Priestess' was a nasty piece of work, not quite human anymore, and had killed at least seven people so far. Dean was looking to make sure she didn't make it eight.

He'd started the night optimistic enough that it was finally going to be over soon, but she'd proven a little more wily than he'd anticipated. And a lot more powerful.

"Son of a bitch." Dean winced as he was knocked off his feet by the smiling blonde. At first glance, she was a knockout. Tall, blonde-hair, blue-eyes, all the right curves in all the right places. On second glance, there was something subtly _wrong_ about her. And if you happened to get a good enough third glance, you could see the glamour slip and you could see something twisting and moving under her skin.

Wincing as he got to his feet, moving a little slower every time he was forced to pick himself back up, he started to wonder if this was going to be the fight he wasn't going to walk away from. He couldn't seem to get close to the bitch and where the _fuck_ was his gun. She'd managed to knock it out of his hands early on before he could get a shot off and in the scuffle, he couldn't be sure where it had gone and he didn't really have the time to look for it. "God, I hate witches."

For that is what the woman had been, once upon a time, but in a desire to get even more power, she'd managed to open herself up to something nasty. Dean didn't even know what the thing _was_ , but he was fairly sure that he could kill it. Probably. He just needed a minute to catch his breath and find that fucking gun…

* * *

The alley wound behind several businesses, more than a few boarded up and long-empty. It was rare that a streetlight even had a bulb, let alone a working one. It was dark, it was creepy, it was _filthy_ , and it smelled fucking awful. Within minutes Skyler was regretting her decision to take this route and was seriously considering turning back. It ran for four more blocks before there was an exit the next street over from hers, but it was only two if she went back. Of course, that would mean she'd wasted time starting this way in the first place and really it wasn't _that_ bad, there weren't even any people except for a single homeless man bedded down in a doorway and what was that sound…

A voice and a scuffle, maybe half a block up, any view she would have had obscured by darkness and a lovely two-story brick piece of realty that looked like it hadn't seen a single customer since the Reagan administration. Yeah, she should really just turn around and go back, that would definitely be the smart way to go-

"Sounds like someone needs some help."

The voice surprised her, and she turned, the homeless man she'd passed just seconds ago now standing in the doorway and looking at her. From here, she couldn't get a good look at him, but she didn't get the sense that he was looking to cause her any harm. And he was still far enough away that there was no way in hell he could catch her if she turned around and took off. She might be small, but she wasn't slow.

"Probably just some dumb chucklehead that bit off more than he could chew." "What about it, Little Sister, you gonna take a chance and go find out?" Starts singing should I stay or should I go now as he walks away, laughing.

Okay, so, homeless dude was obviously crazy but dammit, he had a point. What if it was someone that needed help? And she didn't even have a cell phone because she hadn't been able to afford a data plan so she couldn't exactly call the cops. Now that they'd get there anytime real soon even if she did, response times for non-life-threatening emergencies were laughable in a city like this.

Of course, even if she did go check it out and someone _was_ in trouble, it's not like she could really do anything to help anyway and she'd probably just put her own life in danger and-

While her brain was busy debating the issue, her body had already made up its mind and was silently creeping closer to the corner of the building the sounds were hiding behind. _Oh, fuck me. Fine, I guess we're doing this._

* * *

"Aww, is the big, bad Hunter having a rough time?"

The Priestess stood over him, laughing as he struggled to get up, tasting blood in his mouth and hoping it wasn't from internal bleeding somewhere. He was definitely going to feel this one in the morning. If he even saw morning at all.

"Not so tough now, are you?"

Great, she was gonna monologue. That was always such fun.

"And such a pretty face. What a waste. I could have had some fun with you."

"I'd rather die so if you could hurry up and get on that…"

"Oh, so feisty. Aw well, alright, if you insist."

Well, at least the monologuing was cut short. Of course so was his oxygen as he felt himself lifted up and off his feet by unseen forces that pressed him hard into the brick wall and wrapped around his throat. There was nothing to grab onto, nothing to fight, and it occurred to him that this bitch had been toying with him the entire time. As far as last thoughts go, it probably wasn't the greatest, but he'd never really been that great with words anyway.

* * *

Skyler crept as quietly as she could around the corner of the building, sticking to the deepest part of the shadows that fell there. _This is stupid. You're stupid. Just turn around and go home, it's probably just some junkies getting their rocks off or-_

Or maybe not. Cautiously peering out from behind a rather conveniently placed dumpster, it took her a second to figure out exactly what she was seeing. Which, right that second, really wasn't a whole lot.

"And such a pretty face. What a waste. I could have had some fun with you."

A woman stood there, tall, blonde, gorgeous. Well, at least from the back, and the well-tailored black slacks she wore certainly didn't hurt any. She definitely didn't look like she belonged in this part of town, let alone in a dark alley at four in the morning. And who was she talking to, anyway?

"I'd rather die, so if you could hurry up and get on that…"

A deeper voice rumbled up out of the darkness between the woman and the wall in front of her.

"Oh, so feisty. Aw well, alright, if you insist."

The woman took a step back and Skye was able to get a not-so-great glimpse of a man lying crumpled on the ground. She got a considerably better look at him when he started moving and for a second she thought he was standing, because that would have actually made sense, but no. He got up...and up and up and up...he was tall, she could tell that from there, and there now had to be a good three or four feet of space between the bottoms of his boots and the concrete below.

"Holy shit…" While the majority of her brain was trying to figure out what the holy fuck she was seeing, there was one small portion that had spent the last (almost) nineteen years of her life living in books and TV shows and that part of her was remarkably accepting of what was going on in front of her eyes. Besides, it's not like she hadn't seen Star Wars. She knew exactly what was going on. Dude was getting Force-choked. Well, more or less.

She could hear his faint gasps for air as he fought to breathe, watching his struggles become weaker. He was not doing at all well and if something didn't happen in the next thirty seconds, she was going to watch this guy die right in front of her, murdered by a blonde bombshell in Gucci heels.

* * *

"Hey!"

A voice rang out, uncertain but bolstered by fear and Dean felt the pressure on his chest and throat ease for just long enough to catch a ragged breath before the pressure released completely and he went crashing to his knees on the unforgiving cement. Okay. Ow. That was gonna leave a mark.

"Did...did you seriously just throw a _brick_ at my _head._ What the fuck? Who does that?"

Sucking in a lungful of air, Dean winced as it scraped through his bruised throat, grateful for the pain because hey, at least he was breathing. ...what the hell had just happened?"

Well, that had certainly gotten the woman's attention. Raising a hand to the back of her head, the woman looked down at the blood slicking her fingers from where Skye's improvised weapon had bounced off the back of her skull. Not that it seemed to do a whole lot of damage, which Skye was rapidly beginning to think was a damn shame.

Blinking down at the brick now resting a couple of feet away, the blonde slowly turned around to look at Skyler, pure astonishment on her too-perfect features. Or...they would have been, but there was something seriously wrong there that Skyler just could not put her finger on. Nor did she really want to try.

"Did...did you seriously just throw a _brick_ at my _head._ What the fuck? Who does that?"

Taking a step toward her, the blonde looked more offended than hurt, glancing back down at the blood staining her fingers.

"You realize I'm going to have to make you pay for that, right? I can't just let that go. Word would get out, people would think I'm going soft. You know how it is."

Wrapping her hand around the small metal cylinder in her pocket, Skye took a step back as the woman advanced toward her.

* * *

Staggering to his feet, Dean shook his head to clear it before quickly deciding that was a terrible idea as it set off a throbbing pain behind his eyes. Groaning, he blinked rapidly to clear his vision, trying to figure out who or what had just saved his ass and what the hell was going on.

"You realize I'm going to have to make you pay for that, right? I can't just let that go. Word would get out, people would think I'm going soft. You know how it is."

God this bitch was obnoxious but who was she talking to? The Priestess took another step forward, clearing Dean's line of sight and letting him get a glimpse of his rescuer. A very brief glimpse, enough to register dark hair, pale skin, and a terrified expression. _Shit, she's just a kid._

The thought had barely crossed his mind when he caught a glint of silver out of the corner of his eye, his gun, just under the corner of the dumpster the girl was now quickly backing away from. And the Priestess was following. If the bitch kept her attention on the kid for just one more minute…

* * *

The stream of liquid hit the creepy bitch square in the face, giving her an eyeful before she turned away, screeching and cursing in pain as she bent double and started clawing at her face. Skyler didn't even have a chance to think about running before the blonde was up again, and seriously pissed now.

"Why you fucking little _bitch_."

With a negligent flick of the wrist, Skyler was airborne, sailing through several feet of empty space before impacting the brick building across the alley. The force of the impact was spread out, thankfully, so no serious damage done but it hurt like a bitch and knocked the air straight out of her.

" _And_ you stained my shirt. I _like_ this shirt."

The blonde advanced on her, moving in a quick, jerky way that no human person could manage. _I've stepped into the Twilight Zone_ …

The thought cut off at about the same time as her air, leaving her mind shrieking in fear. On the bright side, not being able to breathe meant that those screams weren't actually making it out of her mouth because who the hell wants to die screaming and wetting themselves in terror? It's just not a good look for anyone.

* * *

The weight of the gun was reassuring in Dean's hand, the metal cool and smooth and familiar. He didn't even think as he raised his arm, sighting down the barrel. He didn't need to. This wasn't exactly his first rodeo. Finger on the trigger, he lined up his shot, adjusting by half a step to ensure the girl wouldn't get the fallout of a through-and-through.

Her vision started to darken, the world receding behind a grey film when a shot rang out and suddenly there was air and air was good. Air was very good.

She sagged back against the brick wall, her breathing ragged as she looked up in time to see the look of surprise on that fucking bitch's face as a flow of red blossomed from her chest, the stain quickly spreading to soak the shirt the twat was so fond of. Well, it certainly looked like it was ruined _now_.

"What…" Turning slowly to look behind her, the blonde seemed dazed. She should have been fucking dead because that was a heart shot or Skyler was the fucking Queen of England. Instead, she was still upright, still talking, though getting weaker by the second as blood-soaked her front. "...you. You _shot_ me."

"Yeah, I did." The baritone Skye had heard earlier sounded again and Skye looked up to see the man whose ass she had just saved with gun in hand, barrel leveled at the creepy bitches head and his attention unwavering. Well, saw some of him, anyway. It was dark and he was in shadow, but still, she could definitely tell who it was. "Bout to do it again, too."

"You...You're both absolute assholes, you know that? I was just trying to have a little fun and you come along and ruin everything." The Bitch slowly crumpled to the ground as her legs gave out from under her, blood staining her lips as she laughed, turning into a pained coughing fit. "Alright, fine. You wanna play that game…"

Dipping her fingertips in the blood starting to drip sluggishly from the wound in her chest, the Bitch laughed as she sagged a little more, having to prop herself up with an arm. Lifting her fingers, she smiled and turned to look past Dean, who was now standing more or less between her and Skye with his back toward Skyler and locked eyes with Skye, a smile Skye did not like stretching her lips into a too-wide smile. "No good deed goes unpunished. You wanna save him? ...good luck."

* * *

With a flick of her fingers, the drops of blood flew off her fingertips, propelled by anger, and pain, and death, spraying with Dean and Skyler with a fine crimson mist as the air kicked up around them, swirling the words in the echoey kind of way you only hear on badly reverbed music videos. " _Donec mors tibi partem_."

Time seemed to slow as the world stretched and skewed around Skyler and Dean, each struck with a wave of vertigo as her blood touched their skin, a band of iron springing up in their chests and squeezing until their hearts stuttered to the same beat.

And just like that, it was over, so fast neither could be sure it had happened.

* * *

Taking a single step forward, Dean leveled his .45 at the laughing, blonde bitch that lay gasping in laughter with a pool of blood spreading across the ground around her.

"You can stop talking now."

"You okay?"

"I am so far from okay, it's not even funny." Getting shakily to her feet, Skyler brushed herself off, wincing as her hands found new scrapes and bruises. "Great, I ripped my uniform."

"Are you _hurt_?"

"Only psychologically." She finally straightened to look up at the man whom she'd saved and had in turn saved her. Not a pattern that would repeat itself for the rest of their lives or anything. Nope, not at all. For just a second, as she looked up into the single most gorgeous pair of green eyes she'd ever seen in her entire life, the world skewed again and she felt her heart stutter for the second time that day. _They're like Spring._

* * *

Tucking his .45 under the waist of his jeans at the small of his back, Dean closed his eyes for a second, scrubbing a hand over his face and taking a minute to collect himself. It had been a long day, to say the least.

With a sigh, he opened his eyes and turned to locate the girl who'd stepped into the middle of this mess, expecting her to still be cowering or have already run off, only to find her getting to her feet with a sigh, every part of her body language screaming that she was just so done with today. He could relate.

"You okay?"

"I am so far from okay, it's not even funny."

The wry twist to her voice was a lot less panicked then he'd expected as she started brushing the dirt and debris off her dark slacks. If anything, she was maybe a little too calm. Shock was always an option.

"Great, I ripped my uniform."

_That's_ what she was worried about? Dean rolled his eyes, stepping up to try and get a look to see if there was anything bleeding or missing and found himself having to revise his initial estimate on her age, raising it a good four years from his first guess. It wasn't that she was that young, it was that she was fucking _tiny_. "Are you _hurt?"_

"Only psychologically."

The exasperated words died away as she looked up at him for the first time and he found himself staring down into the kind of rich, dark brown eyes a man could easily drown in. _Well, I'll be a son of a bitch…_

Five minutes before, if you'd have asked Dean who the most attractive woman in the world was, he likely would have rattled off a couple of supermodels or maybe a favorite porn star. Now? This girl, right here. This itty bitty little slip of a thing with hair as dark as her eyes and the kind of flawless, pale skin people only read about in cheap dime-store romance novels. Not that he ever read those. Was it getting hot out there or was it just him?

* * *

Was it getting hot out there or was it just her? Stumbling back a step, she found whatever smartass remark she was about to make had vanished, leaving her momentarily speechless as she took in the tall, dark, and grimy Adonis standing close enough to reach out and touch her. And just like that, she found the words again. "Okay, who-who the hell are you and what the _fuck_ was that?"

"Trust me, it's better if you don't know." A smile tugging at the corners of lips that would put Michelangelo's David to shame, the entirely-too-calm-about-all-this man just shook his head and turned away, retreating back to kneel by the body lying in the middle of the alley. "Just go on home pretend it was just a bad dream."

"Yeah, that's gonna happen." Still, probably not the worst idea. At the very least, she could definitely use a shower and a cup of tea and maybe a Xanax. Too bad she didn't actually take Xanax. Hell, she wouldn't even take a Tylenol for a headache if she could avoid it. "She's...that _thing_ is really dead, right? I don't have to worry about it trackin' me down later and rippin' my throat out or anything? ...have you seen my mace?"

"Yeah, it's really dead." Looking back over his shoulder at her, laughter making an already attractive baritone all warm and fuzzy. "That's what that was? You fuckin' _maced_ her. That's-that's fantastic. Stupid, but fantastic."

"Oh, screw you, dude. I just saved your ass. If it wasn't for me, you'd be a corpse, just waitin' for some junkie to raid your wallet and take your shoes."

"Well I got about twelve bucks and an expired library card, so more power to 'em." Straightening, he wiped his hands on his jeans, the laughter fading from his voice as the muscle in his jaw started to twitch. Didn't he know clenching your teeth that hard was bad for your enamel? And caused headaches and neck strain. Not that she cared. "And you did not save my ass. I would have figured something out. And what are you even still doin' here? Go home, kid."

"I am _not_ -" Okay, he might be cute and all— _Or, you know, the most attractive man I have ever laid eyes on but whatever—_ But he was kind of an asshole. And bossy. "You know what, that is a _great_ idea. I'm out. Have fun doing...whatever it is you're gonna do with the body. I don't even wanna know." With one final look at the dead thing growing cold on the pavement and the jerk looming next to it, she shook her head and turned on a heel, letting her parting shot drift over her shoulder as she started on the short walk home. "...may we never meet again."


	2. Part Two

An arm flung over his eyes, Dean lay in the single Queen-sized bed that took up the majority of the floor space in the crappy motel room off I-90. It was cramped. It was infested. It was decorated in the most hideous 70's paisley style this side of the Mississippi and the TV didn't even work. It was also thirty bucks a night, no cameras, and no one looked twice at a credit card no matter whose name was on it. He didn't exactly look like an 'Emile Mondavarious'. Life was all about compromise.

It wasn't hard to tune out the noises outside, the constant low drone of humanity outside the door. Cars, horns, voices, people shouting. It was all pretty standard background music for him, almost as comforting as a warm blanket fresh from the dryer. Too bad he couldn't remember the last time he'd had a blanket warm out of the dryer. Or even one he knew for certain had been washed within the last month. No, it wasn't any of that keeping him awake tonight, though even on the best nights he didn't tend to sleep well. Nightmares and insomnia just kind of came with the job description. You adapted or you died.

Nope, it wasn't any of that that had him awake, staring at the back of his eyelids like he was getting paid for it. Because of course it wasn't, that'd be too easy. Too normal. And nothing in his entire life had ever been what anyone would call 'normal'. Nope, tonight, of course, it was a certain pair of dark brown eyes and a totally deadpan, ' _Only psychologically'._

"I can't believe she _maced_ it."

* * *

Skye sat with her back against the wall, a book braced on her bent knees as she re-read the same paragraph for the third time and for the third time had basically none of it actually penetrate through her eyes into her brain. It's not like she didn't know what the paragraph said, it was one of her all-time favorite books and she'd probably read it ten times. At this point, she had no doubt she could have simply quoted the entire thing from memory, but it was the principle of the thing.

Resisting the urge to fling the paperback the whole like six inches to the other side of the room, not that she'd _ever_ do that to a _book_ because that would just be bordering on sacrilegious, she instead carefully closed it and looked down at the cover, the little blonde-haired blue-eyed girl on the cover staring back at her. "What do you think, Alice? Am I going crazy? I think I might be going crazy."

"Of course you're going crazy, you're talking to yourself and now you're answering yourself. That's pretty nuts."

"Yeah yeah, shut up." Gently tossing the book onto the foot of the twin-sized mattress that took up most of the floor space in her 'apartment'—How someone could call this glorified closet an 'apartment' was beyond her—before slowly falling sideways to starfish on the Marvel sheets and giving Deadpool a look. "What do you think, Wade? What, Logan got your tongue? Eh, it'll grow back."

... _You're talking to yourself again. And what you saw earlier? You really are going crazy. Just like I always said…_

"Shut up, Mama, nobody's listening."

'Intrusive thoughts', her doctor called them. Funny how they were always in her mother's voice. Of course, her doctor's boss had called it 'schizophrenia' and then stuck with a bunch of needles on a regular basis when she refused to take her prescribed medication, so what did he know anyway. _Asshole_.

Granted, it wasn't the little voice niggling at her in the back of her mind that bothered her. She was used to that. It was almost comforting, in a way. No, the thing that was bugging her and keeping her from seeing the page in front of her face was a certain pair of bottle-green eyes…

* * *

Giving the motel room a quick sweep before grabbing his duffel bag, Dean double-checked to make sure he hadn't left anything behind before firmly closing the warped wooden door behind him. It was beyond time that he'd gotten his ass on the road. It was a two-day drive to Jericho and with luck, he'd find his dad there.

Shoving his worry about his father—who'd managed to up and go missing just a couple weeks ago—Dean threw his duffel bag in the trunk of his '67 Chevy and dug the keys out of his pocket, humming Van Morrison's 'Brown Eyed Girl' under his breath as he walked around to the driver's side door.

_Too bad I got to leave, I don't think I'd mind running into her again._

* * *

A wave of vertigo washed through Skyler, jerking her abruptly awake. It was like that feeling of falling right as you drift off, only like ten times worse. Closing her eyes, she consciously focused on her breathing and tried to get the feeling to go away. It wasn't the first time she'd woken in the middle of an anxiety attack from some nightmare or other, but she hadn't been having a nightmare and this felt...weird. Different. And it wasn't getting better.

"You're not dying, you're probably just dehydrated." Grumbling to herself, Skyler reluctantly forced herself out from underneath her nice, warm comforter. The grumbling got louder and more NSFW as her bare feet touched the cold wood floor. "Great, heat's on the fritz again. Fuckin' lovely."

Dragging herself into the postage-stamp-sized bathroom, with a door that she never, ever, ever closed, Skyler grabbed the plastic Monsters Inc. cup from it's spot on the sink and quickly filled it with tepid water before draining half the glass and dumping the rest down the drain.

She was halfway back to her bed when her chest started to ache and nausea started in. If this was an anxiety attack, it was a bad one and for the life of her she couldn't figure out what had possibly triggered it.

* * *

Dean hadn't even hit the city limits before he started getting light-headed and he had trouble focusing on the road in front of him as he was slammed with vertigo for the second time in 24-hours. Easing his foot off the accelerator, he let the speedometer shift back to something considered reasonable and forcefully drew a deep breath into lungs gone tight.

Within another two minutes he was pulled over onto the shoulder, vomiting crimson and bile out the open driver's side door as a twisting pain shot through his stomach and that iron band around his chest tightened another notch.

For just a second, he'd have sworn he could hear laughter and the faintest echo of a voice in the back of his mind.

_...Donec mors tibi partem…_

* * *

Laying her sweaty, aching body against the cool tile floor, Skye slowly lifted a hand to wipe her mouth, her fingers coming away stained with traces of blood.

_...with a flick of her fingers, the drops of blood flew off her fingertips, propelled by anger, and pain, and death…_

Shivering, she closed her eyes, trying to fight back another wave of nausea that welled up into the back of her throat...

_I think-I think I'm going to die._

* * *

"Come on, Dad, pick up the phone."

Frustrated but unsurprised when the call went straight to voicemail, Dean slammed the receiver back down on the phone and barely managed to keep from yanking the whole thing out of the wall. Not that he was totally sure he could manage that right this minute. He hadn't felt this weak since ...hell, he couldn't even remember when. The chickenpox when he was eight, maybe. That hadn't been a happy, fun time.

Sagging heavily onto the worn motel mattress, Dean stared blankly at the wall in front of him for a long minute, the gears in his brain grinding through the fog to try and figure out what the fuck was going on. He'd put in half a dozen calls to half a dozen people and not a damn one of them could tell him a damn thing about anything and that was not at all reassuring.

He looked down at the nightstand and the slip of paper there, the words in his own handwriting. He hadn't needed to write it down. He hadn't needed to translate. He'd known what it meant when that blonde bitch had said it, he just hadn't paid her any attention at the time. Which might have been a mistake. Quite possibly the biggest one he'd ever made. Five simple words and yet they turned his blood, what little he hadn't spewed onto the side of the highway, run cold:

_Til Death Do You Part._

* * *

Dean leaned an elbow on the table, turning up his 100-watt smile on the tall redheaded waitress. "Hey, there."

"Hey yourself, handsome." Ticket book in one hand and pencil in the other, the waitress gave him a long and blatantly appreciative look. Not that he was narcissistic or anything, but he'd been around the block more than a few times and he knew a 'I'd hit that' look when he saw one. "What can I get for you?"

"Actually, I was lookin' for someone and I was hopin' you could help me." Sitting back in his chair, Dean dug a wallet out of his jacket pocket. A girls wallet, it'd cost a dollar and change at the gas station around the corner. "I uh-I ran into her last night and she dropped her wallet. It's got some cash but no ID and I was hopin' to get it back to her."

"She was wearin' one of your uniforms I was hopin' she might be workin' today." Letting his gaze linger a little longer than strictly necessary on the redhead's finer points before meeting her eyes, Dean gave her his best 'I'm totally harmless, I swear, I'm such a nice guy' which was known to work surprisingly well on the right demographic. "She's got brown hair, brown eyes-" His smile twitching, he held up a hand to mark the appropriate height, "About the size of a Keelber Elf?"

"You want Skyler." Rolling her eyes dismissively, the redhead flashed him a smile, flipping her hair out of her eyes and batting long lashes at him. _If I only had a little more time. And maybe didn't feel like my insides had been clawed to bits… "_ She's not in today. Didn't even call. And she says _I'm_ rude."

"Don't seem rude to me." He tucked the wallet back into his jacket, nodding at the red pen sticking out of the waitress's apron. "You wouldn't happen to have a phone number you could give me? ...maybe yours too, while you're at it?"

"She doesn't one, as far as I know-"

_Then how is she supposed to call into work?_

"But I'd be more than happy to give you mine."

"That's a shame, but I'll gladly take yours. What time you get off tonight?" Tapping his fingers on the Formica, Dean kept his groan purely internal and upped his smile a notch into a boyish grin that had been known to make the average woman—and maybe a few men—weak at the knees. Yeah, he knew he was good-looking and no, he didn't feel the least built guilty about milking that fact for all it was worth. "...would she have an address on file, you think?"

* * *

Curled up in a cocoon consisting of a faded but still quite fluffy down comforter like a caterpillar that was praying to either hurry up and become a butterfly or just fucking die already, Skye lay staring at the back of her eyelids, trying to let the tinny music from the cheap alarm/radio combo clear out the cobwebs in her brain. Was one of those faux-wood looking plasticy things that seemed to be ubiquitous in every second-hand shop in the country and had a roughly 100-year lifespan.

"... _take me I'm alive, never was a girl with a wicked mind, but everything looks better when the sun goes down. I had everything, opportunities for eternity…"_

Not the most calming music ever, maybe, but The Pretty Reckless was awesome nonetheless and-

Her rambling and exhausted thoughts were rather rudely interrupted by an impatient knock at the door that was way louder than it had any damn right to be, making her jump about six feet straight up. Well, maybe not six feet, but it sure as hell felt like it. _Who in their right mind…_

Dragging herself out of bed, she wrapped her comforter around herself, a second round of obnoxious banging prompting an irritated yell that she made sure to pitch so it carried straight through the thin cardboard that masqueraded as an apartment door, "Dammit, I'm comin', knock it off."

She hesitated before throwing the deadbolt, taking a second to wish she had one of those peephole things—it hadn't been an issue before, she'd never had a visitor—or maybe a doorman. Of course, while she was at it, she may as well wish for a balcony, her own personal library, and one of those big-ass steam showers she saw on late-night infomercials.

* * *

It wasn't until his knuckles touched the door for the second time—impatient to get this over with—that Dean wondered what in the hell he was going to say to this girl.

_Hey, I hunt monsters for a living and I think we've been cursed by that bitch back in the alley. Oh, and while I'm at it, I know we said like two words to each other yesterday and there was a whole thing with me putting two holes in that_ _**thing** _ _, but I haven't been able to get you out of my head all night and I swear I'm not a creep but would you maybe like to go grab dinner-_

Too late now.

* * *

Til the day she died, Skyler would swear that her trying to slam the door in his face was pure reflex. She really hadn't done it on purpose, but it probably didn't endear her to him any. It also didn't do any good as he'd already stuck a booted foot in the door and it took very little effort on his part to push it right back open again in spite of her best efforts. Dude was a _tank_ and no way in a million years was she ever going to win any kind of brute force contest. _There goes arm-wrestling_.

It's weird the thoughts people have in these situations.

Taking a giant step back and very nearly tripping over the hem of her comforter, which would have just been the most graceful introduction _ever_ , Skye forced herself to meet the green eyes that had plagued her fitful morning's sleep. The little she'd gotten, anyway. "What the hell do you want?"

* * *

Dean had thought maybe his eyes had been playing tricks on him last night, or that maybe his sleep-deprived brain had over-exaggerated things in his memory as the faulty human memory had a way of doing but nope. If anything, she was even prettier now than he'd remembered, even if she looked about half-dead.

Shaking the thought right out of his head, he stepped into her apartment, closing the door firmly behind him before turning back around and sagging back against the flimsy thing to look at the pale, irritated young woman standing in front of him wrapped in a ...was that Totoro on that blanket? That was definitely Totoro. Complete with Catbus. _Cute._ "We need to talk."

* * *

"Of course we do." It probably wasn't the healthiest and most responsible response to a strange man— _any_ strange man, let alone one who'd shot someone in the head right in front of her not even 24-hours ago—showing up unexpectedly on her doorstep and forcing his way in but fuck it. She felt like hell and if he'd wanted to kill her, he would have done that last night. Besides, the way she was feeling right now, death might be such a bad alternative. "How'd you find me?"

"Don't answer that. Stupid question. My uniform." Interrupting before he had a chance to answer, she turned and shuffled her way back over to her mattress, she collapsed onto it before actually giving the man a decent look that didn't involve those eyes of his. Rumpled clothes, agitated, and about three shades paler than he'd been last night. "You look like crap."

"That's funny, 'cause I feel like _shit._ And I'm willin' to bet you do, too." Without any kind of by-your-leave, he collapsed onto the floor by the bed. Granted, there wasn't really a spot of floor that _wasn't_ by the bed, but that was beside the point. And speaking of points, it was at about this point that he took a halfway decent look around her apartment, taking in the mattress on the floor and distinct lack of anything else. Well, other than several stacks of books, her radio, a hamper full of clothes that were mostly clean, and a little black and white TV that only worked about a fourth of the time and only if you got the rabbit ears just right, and all the posters of blue skies and the outdoors stuck all over the walls to help the whole place from feeling like it was pressing in on her. "...nice place."

* * *

"Fuck off." The girl— _Skyler,_ he reminded himself—pushed herself into a sitting position, that Totoro comforter slipping off her shoulders to reveal a sky-blue t-shirt about four sizes too big that kept slipping off her shoulders and if Totoro wasn't enough, the t-shirt had Eeyore's forlorn eyes staring out at him from her chest. "Is this your fault? Did you give me the flu or some shit? Never been sick a day in my life-well aside from that one time involving way too many shots of Everclear-but I meet a strange man fightin' some _thing_ in a dark alley and suddenly I'm dyin' of Captain Trips-"

"Don't think Randall Flagg had anything to do with this one, but I could be wrong." Dean wasn't sure whether he wanted to laugh or bounce his own head off the nearest wall. While he wasn't exactly sure what he'd thought her reaction to be to him just showing up, this certainly wasn't it. Fear or shock or surprise or any of a dozen other things would have been expected and those he could have dealt with, he was used to that kind of thing, but this? "Good movie, though."

"The book was better." Okay, she was one of _those_. Great. Of all the girls he could have run into last night, he got his ass saved by a giant—okay maybe not physically—nerd. "So you gonna start talkin' and tellin' me what you're doin' here or am I gonna start screamin' until my neighbor Mr. Tomlin-who was a UFC fighter until about six months ago-comes to find out what's wrong?"

* * *

"...and you're seriously tellin' me that you're some kind of big, bad monster killer and that-that _Priestess_ cursed us?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm tellin' you. At least, I'm pretty sure."

"And you _seriously_ expect me to believe this?" Comforter long abandoned, Skye stared in astonishment down at where he lounged against the wall as if he did this kind of thing every day. Hell, maybe he did. "You know this is insane, right? Like, legitimately 'call your local EMT and see if you, too, qualify for an extra special hug-jacket today' kinda insane."

"You were there, too." Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes, sound every bit as worn out as she felt and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't find the singlest tiny sign that he was lying. Which meant, even if he was insane, he at least believed what he was saying. That 'hug-jacket' bit got a bit of a smile, though, so he at least had some kind of sense of humor. "You tell me, are you insane?"

"It's occasionally a hotly-debated subject." Sinking down to perch on the edge of her mattress with her knees drawn up to her chest, the nervous energy that had driven her to her feet drained away again and she took the time to actually _look_ at the man—and not just the underwear-model features and the emerald eyes and the biceps that she'd swear were as big around as her thigh—and found herself feeling vaguely guilty at the admittedly bitchy way she'd been behaving thus far.

The lines of exhaustion around his eyes and the dark shadows under them, the unhealthy pallor on what she was sure was otherwise tanned skin, the slump of a shoulder and tension around his lips. Insane or not, dude was not doing at all well and she had a feeling that was _before_ the whole Captain Trips thing. He looked like he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in days, at the very least, or a decent meal in about that long. "Alright, I've just got one question."

* * *

"Yeah? What is it?" Opening his eyes, Dean looked over at her, wondering what in the hell she was going to come up with now. 'How do we fix this?' maybe, or 'Could you kindly leave my apartment before I decide you're a psycho hell-bent on hacking me to little pieces and throwing me in the nearest river'. What actually came out of her mouth, however, wasn't even close.

Her chin resting on her crossed arms which were in turn resting on her knees which were pulled up to her chest, the girl— _Skyler_ —blinked at him with what he was pretty sure was genuine curiosity. The first time she'd looked at him like okay maybe he wasn't going to turn out to be Michael Myers incarnate. "...what's your name?"

A smile twitching at his lips, he swallowed a chuckle. In all the insanity (because it's not like she was wrong, this _was_ absolutely totally fucking insane), something as mundane as his name hadn't even come close to crossing his mind.

"I'm Dean Winchester and this-this has not been my day."


End file.
